BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council is giving raises to City Manager Ed Shikada, City Attorney Chris Jensen and City Clerk Mahealani Ah Yun.
Shikada will get a 3% raise, bringing his salary to $448,593 plus benefits.
Jensen, who was hired in April, will also get a 3% raise. He’ll make $391,414 plus benefits.
Ah Yun is getting a 9% raise and will now make $230,838 plus benefits.
The raises are retroactive to July 1 will cost the city $56,000 altogether, not including longterm retirement costs.
Council will consider approving the new contracts on Monday.
Council agreed to the raises after evaluating the employees in closed session with facilitator Dan Rich, who was Mountain View’s city manager from 2011 to 2019.
Shikada, Jensen, Ah Yun and City Auditor Kate Murdock are the four employees appointed by council. Shikada hires and manages most city employees. However, the city attorney and clerk hire and manage the employees in their departments.
Shikada’s leadership has been an exercise in incompetence and complacency. His failure to adequately address the OSV crisis, coupled with what appears to be a persistent lack of urgency and accountability, raises serious questions about his ability to manage the city. He seems content to collect a taxpayer-funded salary while failing to deliver results across multiple areas of city management. At what point does the City Council step up, hold him accountable, and recognize that this level of ineffectiveness is unacceptable?